Radclass - The Manson Family

Charles Manson Before the Family

Charles Manson was born when his mother was just 16 years old. It's hard to know true details about Manson's past, as he's not the most reliable narrator. At the age of five, Manson's mother went to prison for robbery. At 13, Manson was sent to catholic school for delinquent boys. Manson would run away frequently. Manson had many run-ins with the law, so he was frequently incarcerated. These incarcerations give us the best known record. By the time Manson went on trial for the Tate-LaBiance murders, he had spent about half of his life in prison or juvenile institutions. His first documented crime was when he was 14 - he robbed a grocery story in Indianapolis. Within the next year, Manson had stolen a car and a gun. By moving them from Indiana to Peoria, Illinois, Manson committed a felony offense. Manson spent most of the next 16 years in federal prison. 

While in prison, Manson was introduced to Scientology. In 1961, he even considered himself a member, though it did not last. Manson took a class on Dale Carnegie's best-selling book "How to Win Friends & Influence People", which did not mix well with his anti-social diagnosis. By the time Manson was paroled in San Francisco, Manson had the foundation for what would make him a cult leader.

The Family
Right before the "Summer of Love", Manson moved to San Francisco. Before long, Manson was one of many gurus in the Haight-Ashbury District, the de-facto capital of the hippie world. Manson began adding women to his followers as he preached a mixture of apocalyptic Christianity and psychedelic free love. Manson began strongly implying that he was the Christ, his family was like the early Christians, and the establishment were the Romans. 

Before long, the group procured an old school bus, redecorated it, and drove up & down the west coast - from Washington state to Mexico. While a few men joined the Family, it was still mostly women. They eventually settled back in LA. While there's many interesting turns in the story, The Family eventually settled at Spahn Movie Ranch, an old set for tv & movie Westerns. The Family members did a few chores for the Ranch, and they were basically allowed to do whatever they wanted there. 

Charlie controlled almost every aspect of Spahn Ranch. There were daily sacraments of taking LSD, as well as frequent group sex rituals. The women were responsible for gathering food (dumpster diving) & preparing it for the few men. In order to disconnect everyone from the "material world", Manson forbade books, clocks, watches, and even glasses.
Most of the people at the ranch that you call The Family were just people that you did not want, people that were alongside the road, that their parents had kicked them out or they did not want to go to Juvenile Hall, so I did the best I could and I took them up on my garbage dump and I told them this, that in love there is no wrong. I don’t care. I have one law and I learned it when I was a kid in reform school. It’s don’t snitch. And I have never snitched, And I told them that anything they do for their brothers and sisters is good, if they do it with a good thought. It is not my responsibility. It is your responsibility. It is the responsibility you have towards your own children who you are neglecting, and then you want to put the blame on me again and again and again. Over and over you put me in your penitentiary. I did not build the penitentiary. I would not lock one of you up. I could not see locking another human being up.
  - Charles Manson

The Music of Manson

Charles Manson frequently played songs for his family. They were even seeking a recording contract, so the Family could spread their message to the whole world.  Before the murders, The Beach Boys even played one of Manson's songs (though they changed it a bit). After the murders, different artists have covered Manson's songs. Below are three songs, followed by the original recording by Charles Manson. 

Cease to Exist

Look At Your Game, Girl

I'll Never Say Never to Always

Creepy Crawling

Excerpt from Strange (podcast):
According to Guinn: "Charlie wanted the Manson family — about two dozen mostly drug-addled kids — to believe they had the power to enter anyone's home at any time, without the people inside knowing that they were there. And so, he trained them, two or three at a time, to follow him. He would tell them to dress in dark clothes, they would get in the car and then they would drive to some of the fancier residential areas in Los Angeles.

​​"They knew some rich people, mostly rock stars. And what they would do is try to gain entrance into their homes — a lot of times doors weren't locked or windows weren't completely shut. Then, while the people inside slept, the creepy-crawlers would stealthily rearrange furniture. They might put the dining room table where a living room couch had been. And then they'd sneak out, knowing that when the people woke up and saw how things were different, rearranged, they'd know someone had been there inside and could have done anything they'd wanted — murdered them in their beds. And they'd also have no idea who these people were."
Picture
Dramatization from 2004 remake of Helter Skelter
One of the break-in victims was Michelle Phillips, a member of the Mamas and the Papas, who wrote about it in a book. Manson was using the creepy-crawls as "a sort of horrible spring training" for what he really intended. And that would most notoriously include the "Helter Skelter" rampage of back-to-back nights of murders that terrorized Los Angeles in 1969. The victims famously included Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski.
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"Everybody talks about the Tate-LaBianco murders, but I think they miss just how calculating Charlie Manson was in orchestrating the training he thought that his followers needed to carry out real murders," Guinn said on Strange.

Helter Skelter

​While in prison, Manson developed (what has been labelled by some as) an obsession with The Beatles. Manson described the Beatles as "the soul" and "part of the hole in the infinite." Manson would often preach about how the Beatles were tied to The Family's destiny. Manson claimed that there was an impending race war: racist whites would fight with non-racist whites, and then militant black people would finish off the remaining white people. While all of this was happening, The Manson Family would hide safely in a city underground. When it was safe, they would return to the surface and take full control over the world, as black people would be incapable of properly running the world.
In late November of 1968, The Beatles released a self-titled album (also known as The White Album) that the Family saw as indisputable truth that Charles Manson's prophecy was correct. Read below for the connections they made. The Manson Family member known as "Gypsy" said:

"When the Beatles' White Album came out, Charlie listened to it over and over and over and over again. He was quite certain that the Beatles had tapped in to his spirit, the truth—that everything was gonna come down and the black man was going to rise. It wasn't that Charlie listened to the White Album and started following what he thought the Beatles were saying. It was the other way around. He thought that the Beatles were talking about what he had been expounding for years. Every single song on the White Album, he felt that they were singing about us. The song 'Helter Skelter'—he was interpreting that to mean the blacks were gonna go up and the whites were gonna go down."

Here are just a few of the songs & passages that the Family focused on.

The Beatles

​Helter Skelter
This song became the label for Manson's race-war theory. "When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide."
Sexy Sadie
Family member Susan Atkins went by a nickname Manson gave her: Sadie. She had been a topless dancer and used sex to manipulate people into giving her what she wanted. A Family member once said that these lyrics fit Susan Atkins so well that "it made us all sure [the Beatles] had to be singing directly to us."
Honey Pie
Manson claimed that this song was the Beatles begging him to leave LA & meet them in the UK. "Oh honey pie, my position is tragic, come and show me the magic of your Hollywood song." At this point, the Manson Family tried to contact the Beatles & tell them that the Beatles were the ones supposed to "sail across The Atlantic to be where you belong."
Blackbird
Manson believed that this song was about black men rising up & overthrowing the white man. Charlie thought that Black Muslims & Black Panthers were waiting for their moment to strike. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings & learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise."
Piggies
Piggies were the establishment. Black people were going to give the piggies "a damn good whacking" as the song suggests. 
​Revolution 1
"But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out...in" The word "in" is sung after hesitation & does not appear in the lyrics printed in the album. Manson thought this was the Beatles telling him that they were ready, but they couldn't admit to the establishment that they were no longer on a "peace-and-love trip."
Revolution 9
This "song" is purportedly the one that spoke to Manson the most. It's an audio collage over 8 minutes long with no real lyrics. To Manson, Revolution 9 was an allusion to Revelation 9, a chapter that Manson had been preaching for a while. 

The Book of Revelation

Revelation 9:21
"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit." According to The Manson Family, Charles Manson was the 5th angel (The Beatles were the first four). The bottomless pit is the hole in the Death Valley desert where The Manson Family could hide during Helter Skelter.
Revlation 9:2-3
"And he opened the bottomless pit...And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power." Manson thought this was referring to the underground city that the Family would hide out in during Helter Skelter. The Beatles were the locusts. ​
Revelation 9:7-8
"...and [the locusts'] faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women." Manson thought this was talking about The Beatles, who were men that had long hair (the hair of women)
Revolution 9:15
"And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and day, and a month, and year, for to slay the third part of men." Manson claimed the four angels were also The Beatles, prophets who were preparing the way for Manson (the Christ) to lead the chosen people away to safety. Manson thought that the third part of men referred to white people, about a third of the population. ​
Revolution 21:23
"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." The Family's underground city wouldn't even need the sun to survive because they had Manson.